PEDs…they’re back!

Let’s get real folks….they never left.

And guess what we’re going to be hearing about for the rest of the season on sports talk radio? “Biogenesis,” the company at the head of this round of investigations and suspensions.

And MLB’s entire case is based on the testimony of one man, Biogenesis founder Tony Bosch, who agreed to name specific players that received PED’s from his company. The PED in question is most likely HGH, which MLB started doing blood testing for this year.

So, MLB is basing all of this – talking 100-game suspensions for those accused – on testimony that they don’t even have yet. It sounds like they’re putting the cart in front of the horse. And even if Bosch names 20 players, only two really matter: Ryan Braun and Alex Rodriguez. The rest really don’t matter, particularly since the names that I have heard have already been suspended. Melky Cabrera, Yasmani Grandal, Manny Ramirez have already served their suspensions, or are currently serving. And even the players that haven’t been suspended don’t have the name power that two former MVPs do.

Why does this keep happening? Why have PEDs come back into the sport that we love? It’s because they work. And players, even incredibly talented players, will do anything to make themselves better.

And then there are the salaries. Alex Rodriguez will earn over $500 million dollars over his career. Ryan Braun is signed for $130 million dollars. And guess what? They’re going to get that money.

I know, they won’t earn anything while they are suspended, but they will earn the rest of their contracts. They are guaranteed contracts; there is no language in either contract saying that if you get suspended for PEDs the team can void your contract…and there never will be language like that in any contract. No player will ever sign a contract like that, even if the thought of PEDs never crossed their mind. The players union will never allow that to happen.

So, are we going to be stuck in the circle of finding PEDs, cleaning up the sport, finding the next PED, and then having to clean up the sport again….sad to say we probably are. PEDs will continue to rear their ugly head in our sport forever. Or at least until MLB AND the players union begin to get serious about eradicating drugs from baseball. I highly doubt we will ever see a player kicked out of the sport for this, but that may be the only thing that may stop it.

I’ve been a proponent of doing the research into giving players a list of supplements that they CAN take – not drugs, but legal over-the-counter supplements – and the places to get them from, that will never test as an illegal drug. And this is something the MLB and the Union can work on together. Maybe I’m looking at this with rose-colored glasses, considering the history between the league and the union, but something has to be done about this issue.

All we can do at this point is hope none of our favorite players, or our kid’s favorite players, have made trips to Florida.